Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Just Peachy

One of my tips on finding cheap fruits and vegetables this summer was to pick your own. Shmoo and I put that into practice this morning, picking peaches and nectarines at a local U-Pick farm for 60 cents a pound. Not a bad price, especially when you consider that U-Pick combines buying fruit with an hour of enjoying a shady stroll in the orchard and watching kids having fun. Shmoo was a most enthusiastic picker, determined to search tree to tree to find me the biggest, heaviest, prettiest peaches.

Here is my car trunk filled with fresh fruit, at a total cost of $22.00. We plan to gobble up the nectarines, then I'll be peeling and slicing the peaches and freezing them in a single layer on baking sheets. When they're frozen I'll put them in a smoothie bin and enjoy peach-blueberries smoothies all autumn long.

Mmmm....I'm suddenly considering whether the price of gas would warrant a trip out to the east side of the cascades to pick peaches. I'm not sure they grow any closer than Hood River. That *does* sound good!

When you freeze your items on a cookie sheet do you put them directly on the cookie sheet or do you use wax paper or something under it? I made the mistake of freezing my nectarines from my yard by just cutting and throwing them all in a ziplock bag.. so now they are all stuck together!!!

Mmm, peaches. I moved to Hawaii for school recently, and there's a fantastic farmers market downtown from the university (about two miles away). I can get fantastic, inexpensive fruits and vegetables there, but none of the peaches, blueberries, apples, pears, or other fruits I'm used to at home.

Eek, Baltimom, you're right, there does seem to be a not-so-subtle similarity! I hope she had permission to use that recipe!

About the peaches, I love them, but not the fibreglass fuzz that gets all over my lips and hurts. Peeling and freezing them is definitey the way to go. Does the arrival of peaches mean that our season of fresh summer produce is almost at an end? Boooo.

No, they're not ORGANIC. It's still hard to find organic fruit orchards here, but they are starting to turn up.

As I said in my posts this summer, sometimes money is limited and it's more important to find whatever you can get affordably. We eat so much fruit, I can't always afford nothing but organic. I also like supporting local farms, and this was really fun.

We do blanch and peel all the fruit before we eat it, though. Peach fuzz, blech!

wow, those look yummy. I once picked too many apricots (11 pounds) at brentwood here in NorCal and then ended up giving them away as I did not know that you could freeze fruit. jennifer, can you give me freezer recommendations??? I had an old maytag one that died and i am struggling with the small space in my main fridge/freezer. I would typically like to freeze soups, fruit, bread and some grocery supplies (coffee beans) etc. Thanks in advance.